by Alan Russell
He engaged in shop talk with the Bob Johnsons and gave the same in return, with certain embellishments, of course. Roger had heard that people listened more closely if you whispered rather than shouted, so he spoke in a quiet voice, hinting a lot but saying little. He mentioned that he worked for the government and left the implication he was involved with intelligence. It was a favorite fantasy of his.
When not weaving tales, Roger kept his eyes open for Mary Mason. He had wanted to talk with her ever since he had overheard her speaking with Am and Sharon. Maybe she knew what was up. Usually she was running around organizing something or making sure everyone was having a good time. It wasn’t like her not to be doing something.
The actors started taking their places, and the Bob Johnsons began to find their chairs.
“Be good,” said a Bob Johnson to Roger, “be Bob.”
Roger repeated his parting words. The lights began to dim and Roger took a last look around the room. As if on cue, Mary Mason appeared. She was standing at the doorway, looking in to make sure all was well. Better late than never, thought Roger. He started walking toward her when the room suddenly went completely dark. From the blackness came a scream.
Confound it all. That scream was the last straw. Maybe it was one of them fairy actors, or maybe it was the renegade Bob Johnson killing somebody else. Either way, Bull was damn sure he wasn’t going to be standing around in a room with a murderer without proper lights.
The actors had started up with their gibberish talk. Bull walked quickly toward one of the exits, knowing what he had to do. That bellman had gotten him what he needed. Hell, that boy probably would have sold his mother if he’d come up with the green.
“He’s dead!” shouted one of the actors.
Concealed under a table were two brooms and some rope. Bull was right handy with knots and felt comfortable with the cord in hand. He angled the brooms through the door handles and sealed the escapes with a little rope tying. It didn’t take him more than fifteen seconds with either door.
“Excuse me,” said Roger, interrupting Bull in his handiwork while trying to get out of the room.
“Ain’t nobody going nowhere,” Bull said.
The actors tried to play through the disturbance in the back of the room. They had been trained to continue with their performances even if someone in the audience was having a heart attack or a seizure. But this was worse. This was a pain in the butt.
They tried competing with his bellowing, but he had the kind of carrying voice that drew ballplayers to jump into the stands. And he was approaching their stage. Once again the Bob Johnsons stopped the show. Or at least one of them did.
“Give me some lights,” said Bull. “Give me some goddamn lights.”
No one stirred at first. Most of the audience suspected he might be part of the show. But when Bull took a preemptory deep breath, a host of Bob Johnsons rushed to do his bidding before there was another roar.
The lights came on. Sharing the stage with Bull were several actors. They didn’t have to think up their expressions of fright and dismay. The audience of Bob Johnsons was more composed. They were getting used to the unexpected. Truth to tell, the day’s activities had been fun, but they had come to expect a little more juice. Like this.
Bull looked out to his fellow Bob Johnsons. His favorite mysteries were those where all the suspects were gathered in one room, usually a setting with a fireplace, a couple of decanters, a bust or two, and a lot of leather-bound books. He liked it when one by one the sleuth eliminated the possible murderers and finally revealed the real culprit.
At one of the exits, Roger tried desperately to unravel a knot. He had a bad feeling about this.
Thumbs hooked through his belt loops, jaw squared, Bull said, “None of you is going to like hearing this. What’d that little Pogo character decide years back? Something about how we found the enemy, and he is us.
“Brothers, it’s my sad duty to tell you that’s the case. One of us is a murderer.”
The gasps went up; the heads turned around; the disbelieving eyes sought reassurance.
Bull had less to go on than Joe McCarthy, but he had that same kind of talent for quarter truths, insinuation, overstating the case, and pretending, perhaps even believing, he was the voice, and right hand, of God.
“A Bob Johnson murdered,” said Bull. “And we’re going to find out who it was.”
With a stifled shriek, Roger yanked at the door. The broom held, and the witch-hunt took off.
XLIV
Am was hoping that Sharon would be waiting for him in his office. He was feeling better about his prowess as an investigator. Now, at least, he had solved one crime (or a thousand, depending on how you looked at it). But it wasn’t Sharon who sat waiting. Seated was an older man, heavy, but not portly. He had a dark suit and white hair and looked to be about sixty. His eyes were like Spencer Tracy’s, with the same expressive blue that looked alternately inquisitorial and mischievous. The lines in his face were deeply cut, mined almost to his mouth, which gave him the appearance of having a perpetual smile or, if not quite that, a look of bemused whimsy.
“Mr. Caulfield?”
Am nodded, accepting and shaking an extended hand.
“One of the clerks suggested I wait for you here,” the man said. “I’ve had a little problem.”
“How may I help you, Mr….?”
“Harmon.”
Am took a seat behind his desk, managing to keep a neutral, if concerned, look on his face. So this was Harmon, he thought. He looked more like a Shriner than a criminal, didn’t look like a man who would take candy from a baby, but maybe he couldn’t be trusted around a toddler carrying a Shirley Temple.
“Mr. Caulfield,” he said, “I’m a business consultant who frequently works for a firm in San Diego. I’ve been a regular at your hotel for many years, and usually try to mate business with pleasure, giving myself a window of time before and after my work to relax. This afternoon I had nothing on my docket but a good book, an ocean vista, and a cold drink. I checked in a half hour ago and availed myself of the minibar in my room. And the strangest thing happened.”
He paused, and then he posed. “I decided on a G and T. I poured myself some tonic, then added what I thought was gin.”
Harmon looked at Am closely. Though Am already knew what he was going to say, his delivery was good enough to make him lean forward.
“The gin had been replaced,” he said. “Replaced with water.”
Harmon stayed seated but still gave the impression he was playing to an audience. “I have to admit to being a bit nonplussed, Mr. Caulfield. But I decided a vodka and tonic would do me almost as well. So I took a sip, and I haven’t been so disappointed since pulling Kleenex out from Elsie McFadden’s bra, lo those many years ago.”
“Well, sir, when twice burned, even old dogs learn. I decided to take a close look at your libations, and upon inspection I found that every single bottle of alcohol had been doctored.”
Harmon stopped talking, examined Am’s face for signs of outrage. Am didn’t have to fake that; Harmon’s indignation was his.
“I am very, very, sorry this happened to you, Mr. Harmon,” he said. “This kind of incident is very embarrassing.”
Am gave Harmon a long look and a good read of his eyes. “It is hard to believe that people would stoop to such measures,” he said, “difficult to imagine that they would go so far just to cadge a free drink. It wouldn’t bother me if the start and finish of it was one little bottle of booze; it’s the rippling effect that is so troublesome.
“First, the guest is unhappy, and they have a way of circulating their disappointment. A guest denied is a guest who calls the front desk. The clerk gets an earful and, after what seems an hour of ire, promises to rectify the situation. The discovery is usually made in the evening, so the bellman ends up getting dispatched to an empty room to get the liquor from another minibar, but the saga doesn’t end there. The clerk has to document the incident
to management, and the bellman has to leave a note with housekeeping. The inconvenience then rolls over into the next day.
“Housekeeping, which is in charge of replenishing the bottles and keeping an inventory, has to restock the items as well as account for the doctored booze. Management has to be very particular with the liquor inventory, has to make sure shrinkage is not occurring because of the staff imbibing. Unfortunately, the many suffer because of the one, and are treated with less dignity than they deserve because of some guest who was too cheap to pay for the booze. Doesn’t seem fair, does it?”
Am’s speech, and penetrating eyes, had made Harmon uncomfortable. “It sounds like much ado about a little prank,” he said, though rather weakly.
“Once would have been a prank,” Am said.
For Am, it felt good to finally confront a guest even if on a diplomatic level, where nothing overt could be stated. This was his moment of getting back at all the guests who had swapped their own twenty-five-watt bulbs for the Hotel’s three-way variety, had replaced the batteries in their cameras with those in the Hotel’s remote controls, and substituted old linen for new. Most of all, it was payback for every guest who had ever tampered with an honor bar.
Harmon stood up, and so did Am. “We appreciate your business, Mr. Harmon,” he said. “Next year we will probably be putting computerized minibars in the rooms, the kind that immediately record a sale whenever a bottle or item is lifted out. That should eliminate any surprises.”
Harmon looked at Am and asked sincerely, “No hard feelings, I hope?”
“None,” said Am, extending his hand. “I’ll make sure your honor bar gets restocked right away.”
They shook hands, then Harmon raised up his arm as if offering a toast and said, “Cheers.”
XLV
“A little peace, Julian,” prayed Am. “I need a little peace.”
Without it, Am feared, he would forever be sidetracked from hunting down the murderer. With not a little guilt he remembered that he had sent his partner off without him. Where was she? There were messages piled high on his desk, and he looked to see if one was from Sharon. The calls had come from reporters, concerned guests, friends, purveyors, and the curious, but there was nothing from her. Concerned, he called housekeeping and was relieved to hear that Sharon had taken a room checker along with her. At least she wasn’t searching for a murderer by herself.
He was tempted to sweep all the messages into the trash. It was easy to understand why some guests insisted the desk hold all their calls. There is a power in putting your life beyond the reach of the world, in deciding when, and if, you are ready to respond to its knocking. That’s what David Stern had done.
Something nagged at Am. Even presidents and rock stars could be reached through the switchboard, bona fide callers being privy to a code name or on an approved list. Stern hadn't been a rock star. He should have been reachable, if only to his secretary. Of course he could have just called into work every day and received his messages that way. But what if there had been an emergency? Or an important business decision that couldn't wait? Perhaps they had worked it out that anything important was to be addressed to the attention of room 605.
Am hadn't checked to see if there were any messages for David Stern. He assumed that if there had been any, the police would have picked them up. Since the lawyer had asked for anonymity, all messages or mail (or deliveries, such as wine and cheese) should have been held at the desk for him. Am's real dilemma was whether it worth getting out of his seat to pursue yet another dead end. The front office supervisors were supposed to monitor the messages. Uncle Harry's note for niece Jane in room 223 wasn't supposed to extend beyond Jane's check-out, though too many times it did. Any message to infamous room 605 would have been noticed. Or would it? When you have over seven hundred rooms, names and numbers tend to blur.
Out at the front desk two clerks were laughing loudly. “Do it,” said Tracy.
“Yes,” Sue said. “I dare you.”
T.K. looked as though he were on a comedic roll, never a good sign.
“Whatever it is,” said Am, turning the corner so that everyone could see him, “I'd advise against it.”
The clerks tried to stop laughing, unsuccessfully, and T.K. decided to explain. “I was just saying we should page over the intercom, `Bob Johnson, please come to the lobby telephone. Bob Johnson, you have a call.'
Am rolled his eyes, shook his head firmly, and started looking through the messages. As properties have become larger, and rooms too numerous to be accommodated by individual tubby holes, different message systems have been devised. No one will be happier than hotel PBX operators when voice mail becomes the rule of guest rooms throughout the land.
As Am suspected, there were no messages for room 605. Before giving up, he decided to look through the hold box, the Hotel's version of the dead letter office, a repository for messages, faxes, and mail that somehow never reached the guest. For once, the system worked.
Since Stern was no longer a registered guest (the Hotel had already direct-billed his firm in the hopes of collecting on the account), some clerk had redirected his fax to the hold box. Am held off reading the pages until he returned to his office. The cover sheet was from Stern's secretary. She had handwritten, “This man still firmly in the denial stage. Says that you're his only contact with his wife and he needs to hear from you yesterday. Didn't make any promises, of course. Soak some rays for me. Liz.”
Then Am slowly read Carlton's letter, words from a man in pain. Carlton Smoltz had implored the lawyer to have his wife call him. He knew their marriage wasn't the best, but he was willing to work to make it better. Have her contact me, he had written, anytime.
What would David Stern have advised his client? Am hoped he would have told her to call her husband. This Carlton sounded sincere. Maybe now that there was no longer a lawyer between them, Carlton and his wife would get back together.
Am dropped the fax into his wastebasket, then thought better of that and retrieved it. He might be Carlton's only chance. Am would have preferred sending the words directly to Mrs. Smoltz, but he decided the right thing to do was to send them back to Stern’s firm.
“I know his room number!”
Sharon’s traditional reserve was broken. She was all but dancing in his office. “He’s in two oh eight. I’ll bet you anything.”
She couldn’t stand still, had to walk around as she excitedly described what wasn’t in room 208. When she finished, Am had trouble being as enthusiastic.
“Did anyone identify him as the occupant of the room?” he asked.
“Not exactly….”
“And did you make sure he didn’t send his laundry out?” Unsaid: If Wrong Way fouled up on one delivery, what’s to say he didn’t another?
Her face fell. “I didn’t think of that.”
Am picked up the phone, punched in an extension. “I’d like you to check if any laundry went out for room two oh eight. The name’s Bob Johnson. Bob…”
He looked to Sharon for a middle name. “Carlton,” she said.
“Carlton?”
She nodded, albeit with some surprise. The sharpness of his response hadn’t seemed necessary.
“Bob Carlton Johnson,” Am announced, both to the phone and to himself. A few seconds later he said, “Thanks,” but the quizzical expression remained on his face.
Sharon couldn’t restrain herself. “Well?”
“Oh,” said Am, remembering the purpose of the call. “He didn’t send out any laundry or dry cleaning.”
She sighed in relief, then looked afraid once more. “Maybe he’s already skipped. There’s hardly anything in the room.”
Am wasn’t listening. He was thinking about the name Carlton. It was a coincidence. It had to be. The faxed letter he had read hadn’t contained any threats or recriminations. There wasn’t a tone of “reconcile, or else.” And yet…
He motioned Sharon to sit and passed her the fax. She read it, put it down, then
picked it up and looked at it a second time. She was about to respond when Jimmy Mazzelli marched in.
“Trouble, Am.”
The bellman threw himself on the chair next to Sharon, gave her a casual nod, and slouched.
“What now?” asked Am. His echo: This better be important.
“Bob Johnsons.”
Am covered his face but resisted the impulse to cover his ears.
“They got wind of the rumor, Am. Responded pretty vigorously to it.”
“What rumor?”
“That one of the Bob Johnsons is the murderer. The talk is, you guys even got a sketch of him.”
Jimmy straightened a little and looked around. He hadn’t forgotten about the incentive money offered for getting one of those sketches. Though the time limit had expired, he was still confident he could get some green out of Mr. Johnson. Unfortunately there didn’t appear to be a copy sitting around.
Am was afraid to ask, but he did: “What happened?”
“From what I hear, the Neptune Room got closed off to the world, and the interrogations got pretty nasty. Everybody started pointing the finger at everybody else. Some fights broke out, and there were all sorts of accusations. Some confessions, too. Everyone had to provide identification. Turned out there were some ringers, guys with names like Henry Robert Johnson and Daniel Bob Johnson. That’s against their rules. The first name’s got to be either Robert, Bob, or Bobbi.”
The Bob Johnson Society ground rules were of no interest whatsoever to either Sharon or Am. “Get on with it,” she snapped.
Jimmy looked at her with a little surprise, then continued. “There were a couple of real phonies, though. One was an actor. He was going deep cover. Guess his part wasn’t really supposed to start until the next act. The other actors vouched for him. But Casper didn’t have it so easy.”
“Roger?” asked Sharon.